I am of Pashtun-Afghan heritage with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin

In the context of all-out globalization, “cybernetic colonialism”, “pseudo-individualism”, “liberal hedonism”, social engineering, tele-surveillance,… and war of perception are increasingly becoming integral parts of virtual realities, which could pave the way to a totalitarian control under the disguise of a moral postulate to get rid of “oppressive” regimes abroad and replace them with “democracy” run by metropolitan corporate elites.

Since the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Washington has been engaged in Pashtun-bashing. Three days ago, America lost another important battle of perception. Richard Holbrooke is the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Fareed Zakaria’s weekly international/foreign policy television program “Global Public Square” aired on CNN (Sunday: March 14, 2010; 10-11 AM California time), Holbrooke downgraded Pashto to “local language” while it is actually the national
and legally an official language of Afghanistan. He told Fareed Zakaria that Hamed Karzai, the so-called president of Afghanistan, had spoken with the people of Marja area (Kandahar province) in “local language”, namely Pashto, the language of majority Pashtuns (I, Zirakyar, heard Karzai was talking in Pashto). The U.S. Special Representative’s silly and embarrassing remark might have resulted from misinformation or disinformation. I would not be surprised if his adviser or translator could be a non-Pashtun Afghan connected to the Northern Alliance warlords. I am also surprised that
political scientist , a major U.S. media figure and Indian-American Dr. Fareed Zakaria failed to correct the U.S. Special Representative Holbrooke’s unwise remark.
End: March 16, 2010